Beauty and Sadness

Synopsis

Haunted by the choices of his youth, the successful novelist Oki returns to Kyoto to see Otoko, the woman with whom he had a tragic love affair decades earlier. Now an accomplished painter living with her younger companion and lover, Otoko has built a life apart from the past, yet Oki's unexpected reappearance stirs long-buried emotions and sets in motion a quiet but devastating chain of events.

Elegant, restrained, and deeply moving, Beauty and Sadness explores memory, desire, jealousy, and the lingering consequences of love. With extraordinary subtlety, Yasunari Kawabata creates a novel of quiet emotional power, where longing and loss echo across generations.

About the Author

Yasunari Kawabata (1899–1972) was a Japanese novelist and the first Japanese writer to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature. Celebrated for his spare, lyrical prose and profound sensitivity to beauty, memory, and impermanence, he is the author of Snow Country, Thousand Cranes, The Sound of the Mountain, and Beauty and Sadness. His work remains central to modern Japanese literature.

Publisher
Vintage International

Publication Date
June 4, 1996

Format
Paperback

Pages
208

Subjects
Classics · Literary Fiction · Japanese Literature · Translated Fiction

ISBN
9780679761051